With the increasing popularity of the Internet, attention is being given to Web Services, a new use of web-based information exchange techniques used on the Internet. The Web Services, which are a kind of software services provided via networks, enable dynamic and loosely coupled communication between software components on the Internet. A website (web server) that provides a software function as its service encapsulates the prepared service (wraps it with connection code) and discloses it on the Internet. The website thereby allows the service to be used by websites and web terminals requesting the service. The Web Services utilize open techniques including UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration), which is a registry mechanism that serves as a storage and management system capable of registration and retrieval of information. The open techniques utilized also include WSDL (Web Services Description Language) as a description language for explaining services to be provided, SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) as a communication protocol, and XML (extensible Markup Language) as data description language specifications.
For more details, UDDI is described in the references 1 and 2, WSDL is described in the references 3 and 4, SOAP is described in the reference 5, XML is described in the reference 6, and the Web Services are described in the reference 7.
Referring to FIG. 13, the architecture for realizing a Web Services includes a provider (service provider) 131, a UDDI site 132, and a requester (service user), which are capable of exchanging data with each other via a network. The Web Services is realized by exchanging data among these three entities. Specifically, the provider 131 first implements a service to be provided [1]. Then, information on the implemented service is registered with and disclosed at the UDDI site 132 [2]. Then, the requester 133 issues a search request for a desired service to the UDDI site 132 [3]. If the desired service is found, the requester 133 connects to the provider 131 to request the service [4], and the provider 131 returns a result (response) to the requester 133 [5].
In conventional Web Services, the information registered with the UDDI site 132 includes, for example, information specifying a company that provides the service (e.g., a company name), a service type (e.g., the name of the service), and information required for binding the service (e.g., a URL). Binding a service means to obtain a URL address and connection interfaces (protocols and connection methods (connection code)) of a service (service component) and to connect to the service. A service component means a service encapsulated for external accesses. As seen from FIG. 13, these information items are static ones registered before the actual start of the service.
As described above, information registered with a UDDI site in conventional Web Services has been static information prepared before the start of services. Therefore, when a requester searches for a desired service, the requester has no effective criteria for determining which service to select from a plurality of similar services found.
In such a case, the ability to provide appropriate criteria will be able to introduce competition into service provision in Web Services. That is, it can easily be imagined that providers will take various measures in an effort to cause their services to be selected. This will highly promote stimulation of Web Services activities (especially business activities such as Internet commerce).
Further, the ability to provide information that objectively represents the quality of provided services as those criteria will cause the providers to improve the quality of their services, thereby allowing the requester to enjoy the services of higher quality.
Thus, an object of the invention is to realize provision of appropriate criteria in searching for a web services.
Another object of the invention is to provide, as those criteria, objective information for determining service quality.